Water heater pipe- some help.

Tonyhliu said:

Hi Guys
Found out the water heater pipe rusted. See pictures.
How hard to fix it myself? Do I need to replace the whole water heater? Seems salts busted the connection.

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Gord said:

You have a few choices. You can bypass that part of the water heater that works off from your motor and use your water heater for years to come if you wish. I do not know of a way to fix the tube that has come off. I decided to replace mine. It was around $625. Just for the heater. The shop had my motor out and i decided it was a good time to replace it

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Henry Boyd said:

On a broader issue, that’s an awful lot of salt build up. This is also deposited in the engine cooling system. You might think about running some salt remover through the engine the next time it is out of the water.

H

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stephens013 said:

Looks like the nine hot water pass through. I had a similar issue on my first boat. Gord is right about evaluating how much you use hot water just after engine shut down. I replaced a water heater in a 310 Chaparel. Man was that a job. Would have loved it if I could have deferred the whole thing for a season or two or until some other maintence made a for better access. I elected to bypass the heater and just go with the internal heater.

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Henry Boyd said:

To bypass remove the remains of the tank fitting from the hose in your first picture. Then remove the other black hose. Trim back the hose ends just enough to get an undistorted end. Then using a double barbed nipple and clamps join the two together. You don’t want to trim too much off the ends so that there will be enough length left re-attach to a new heater in the future.

On a broader issue, that’s an awful lot of salt build up. This is also deposited in the engine cooling system. You might think about running some salt remover through the engine the next time it is out of the water.

H

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Lazy Daze said:

That, in my opinion, the most important point here.

Flushing with the block drains open using just fresh water for a while, might be a good first step to eliminate most of it. You'll need to manually check the drains and clear them, if necessary. The good thing is, you have a very user-friendly bilge and a small block engine.

The hot water is kaput - if there's that much salt buildup there, there's buildup inside the heater's coil, too. This will eventually eat through the coil and then you have all kinds of other problems. You could take a chance that flushing it out would stop it, but I wouldn't chance it. For now, eliminate the HWH from the system so you can still boat - connect the cold and hot lines together and plug the rubber heating lines.

Another easy way to plug lines is to remove them from the engine - the fittings that are screwed into the engines can be unscewed and a standard, bronze garboard drain plug fits the hole (you'll need two, obviously).

See that hose bubble by your hand? That is most likely salt buildup and who knows how far back it goes. I'd want to get rid of those hoses completely. Hose is cheap, should you decide to use the engine-heating system again.

Oh... if you haven't checked your manifolds/risers/elbow recently - now would be an excellent time to do so.

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